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@adarlinglittleboy
ooc://
Michael and Valentines day, can you imagine? Even after over a century, he's still very much a child deep down inside. I can't think he's ever had a close relationship with a girl, and views them either as Mothers (Belle) or just downright scary.
He's just standing here like.
"John, what is?"
//Closed starter for darlingchiiild
adarlinglittleboy:
It had rained last night. Not the light, drizzling shower of a London Spring; the kind that made puddles, caused the lake in the park to swell, and panicked the ducks. Not the kind of rain Michael was used to. This wasn’t fun rain.
It had been the kind of tropical storm Michael was still too young to have even heard about. Great fat droplets of water had pounded down at them relentlessly, downing branches and leaves, and destroying the smaller saplings completely. Out on the bay, the crashing waves had reached right up the cliffs on the other side of the island, and lightning had lit up the sky like midday. This wasn’t the first storm the brothers had witnessed, and it wouldn’t be the last. In Neverland, it seemed, even the weather was ruthless.
Michael Darling clung tight to his sodden teddy bear, shivering under the old oak tree in the cold morning light. He was trying to be brave, for John. But the little boy’s lower lip quivered. His nose streamed, and his eyes shone with barely concealed tears. Back at home, Mother had always comforted him during the night of a storm. She had held Michael close, sang him songs, and made sure Nana was close by at all times. But now there was no Mother, and no Nana. Mother had stopped coming to comfort Michael a long time ago, and he couldn’t understand why.
Had he been bad? Was she cross at him? Michael didn’t want to be here. Neverland wasn’t fun any more. He wanted to stop playing this game.
he had previously had been buried into the span of arms that had been folded around his knees, hugging them close & pressing them tightly against his chest, because in that way, it was safer, to hold himself together, fold himself in & shield himself from both PHYSICAL & E M O T I O N A L torment that he finds himself drowning within. he wants to go home, return to where it is safe & warm, WELCOMING for that matter - neverland is no longer welcoming, nor a place that john now wishes to claim a home. it is within his silence that he has created in order to conceal himself from the body that rests aside of him. john is well, JOHN, ( the middle child, but surely older than michael, ) in reality, john may be all that michael has left, for neither have their sister, nor father, nor mother, he believes within himself that he must be the stronger of two, because he is older, & also because he simply cannot ask such bravery nor strength from him little brother.
john raises his head, emerald optics, that appear somewhat jaded behind his lenses, focus upon that of his brother. he can see through michael, read him like an open book; he has always been an open book to john. he can see that the boy holds fear close to his chest, just as he holds his teddy bear, & for the life of him, john wishes that he could chase that fear away, like his mother, or father would have done. hand reaches towards his little brother, deft digits lingering briefly within the wet & cold, ( as if he believes that his touch would be unwanted & far from W E L C O M E D, ) but eventually, he is smoothing hair from his brothers features, smoothing locks to one side, & out of his face.
' you’re allowed to be afraid, michael. ‘
he blames himself, & himself ALONE that he allowed michael to be caught up within this, for it was he whom had suggested a search for wendy, it was he that could not turn down his brother, when michael had wanted to come along, ( of course he understood why michael had wanted to come, ) but it had been safer for michael back at home, with mother & father, at the least he would have, had WARMTH, the care & required love & touch..
' i’m here. i promise you. ’
Michael peered up at John from behind Teddy's damp head. He sat still, and allowed his brother to brush away the stray locks of hair without the usual wiggling protests John might have received at home. Although he was too young to understand the complex emotion, Michael wanted to be near somebody; he needed comfort, reassurance. He needed someone to hold him close and tell him everything would be fine. He was used to that; used to the warm closeness of family-- what five year old wasn't? Michael had never experienced even the concept of danger, not until Neverland-- and it only made this place so very much worse.
What he wanted was Wendy. Wendy, who had always been so brave, so warm, utterly capable of drying Michael's tears with just the opening words of a story. But John was the closest thing Michael had to that now. Wendy was gone, swept away from them by Pan's shadow.
"I'm not scared." he lied softly, his face still pressed tight against Teddy's. Then, because Michael had always been an awful liar, even at play, he whispered; "I want to go home."
Michael wished John was here. He hadn’t spent long enough on his own to know how to act, to know how to cover himself. He was too used to being the baby of the family; to being looked after and protected. And a constant bubble of family love can do it’s own kind of damage; Michael only knew how to follow orders, to rely on others. Breaking them felt as taboo as any other disobedience, especially when Wendy was involved. But he had resolved to do this. No matter what it took, no matter how scared he was. H-he had to do this. For his big sister. With trembling hands, Michael flicked off the safety.
As the other flicked off the safety of the gun, Curly’s smile disappeared. He kept his face as blank as he could, and hid the fact that his stomach had just jumped to his throat. He was actually going to do it. Michael Darling was going to shoot him. All it would take was a squeeze of his finger and Curly’s life would be over. He trained his eyes on the gun for a second before looking back up at Michael’s face.
“Are you actually going to pull that trigger?”
He wanted to. By God, did Michael want to. To show Pan that they could rebel; that they could actually do something, something other than follow blindly what they were told. Michael wished he could convince himself that this, whatever came of it, could at the very least convince their boss that the Darling brothers were a threat. That it would change things for them.
He tried to convince himself that this wouldn't hurt Wendy.
He nodded sharply, his lips pressed together thinly. Michael didn't trust himself to speak any more, lest it caused his courage to run dry. He had crossed that line now if he let Curly go, then he would surely run back to Pan, and things would only be made worse. Far, far worse.
Michael’s cheek twitched, just a little, just slightly. It was such a small twitch that it might not even have been noticeable, had someone not been paying close attention. Suddenly, the man’s face seemed to have tightened; closed off. Michael’s lips had become a thin, hard line, his jaw firm.
"I don’t think so." he said. Nothing was a good idea, not for his situation. Nothing but his direct orders. "We don’t have that kind of luxury."
Ariel had never been someone to give up easy and she barely knew when she should do so. Surrender has not been part of her training, it was fighting ‘til the end. But sometimes she knew when her words alone could not change a situation. And his face showed how he was not going to give in too.
"Okay. Your loss…" She shrugged her shoulders.
It was her tone that did it.
For a moment the tightness of Michael's expression loosened, just a little. underneath it all, Michael suddenly looked uncertain, and very almost apologetic. Somewhere in there, if one stripped away the layers of forced obedience and bottled resentment, Michael Darling was still very much a little boy. He was terrified of Pan, terrified of what he might do. But he didn't...want that. He wasn't a naturally closed off person; he was friendly, he liked people. He just...couldn't. He hadn't had that ability in a long, long time. And things did not look set to change. Even so, the man lowered his gaze, shifting awkwardly.
"I'm..sorry." He said quietly. "We're not...it's just not possible."
With his face turned away, Michael Darling was rapidly losing his composure. He was too close, it was too soon, they had too much at stake to lose all over again. It felt, sitting here, in this town, that they might never be fully free of Peter Pan’s influence. Not with the very epitome of a loyal lost boy no more than a foot away.
Michael had known Felix as a toddler, when Felix had seemed like an adult in his eyes; on the same level as Peter Pan himself. And although he had long since aged past the gangly teen, whilst Felix himself hadn’t aged a day, never would Michael be able to quite shake the childhood fear.
Slowly, resentfully, Michael turned back to face Felix. His eyes shone tearfully, his face was pale. But in his tight, anxious way, Michael glared.
"We don’t work for Pan any more." he said softly, unable to keep the gentle edge of relief, or disbelief, from his voice. "You don’t frighten me!”
Grappling with his own inner voices, demons and feelings, Felix glared hard at Michael. Had he really, truly been frightened of him? No different than any of the other Lost Boys he supposed.
Desiring to say something full of snark and cruelty, Felix bites his tongue and bides his time. Michael’s tears tear at Felix’s soul. They always did when he was younger, and they do the same now. Felix, himself is hurting, but unlike Michael who seems to wear his emotions on his sleeve, the tall blond hides it, as always. Finally a different word enters his mind to say.
”Good." Because truth be known Felix does not prefer for others to fear him; he is aware that he is easily hated and feared.
Michael blinked. After so long of fearful predictability-- Both Darling boys had known full well when Pan would be displeased with their actions, even without his shadow peering over their shoulders-- such a sudden response was...shocking. Michael felt almost uncomfortable with it. He wasn't used to seeing the Lost Boys, free or otherwise, as actual people, with original thought. Especially not Felix, the closest one to Pan.
Michael had lost that ability even as a child, at the same time that they had lost their big sister.
"...Good?" he asked, before he could stop himself. Out of suprise, Michael's voice had lost it's edge of wobbling anger, if only for a moment.
ooc://
This will never not be my new favorite reaction icon:
With special mention going to:
Mr Michael Totally still a five year old with a toy car Darling
"Michael." he replied softly, "Michael Darling." After a moment, Michael allowed himself to hold out his free hand to her. It felt odd, strangely liberating, but still so disobediently dangerous, to do something like this. Back before, for so many years, even the thought of an outside friendship would have been terrible. Not Allowed. Dangerous. Even as children, newly released from Neverland. Michael and John had known to stay close, and closed.
And although the Darling family was now free of Pan’s influence, over a century of habits were hard to break, especially in Storybrooke. These things took time.
She remembered hearing about the Darlings. She thought she might have visited Neverland, once, while they were there. If not, one of the boys had spoken of them in the rare case when she was acknowledged. Still, despite this knowledge that this family had been shaped by her enemy (although, she still didn’t know if enemy was the right word), she took Michael’s hand in her own and shook it. It wasn’t his fault that Pan had taken him.
"I’m Piper. Well, they used to call me The Piper, but it’s just become Piper here.”
Michael's handshake was firm, but brief. He pulled it away almost immediately, and slipped the hand back into his coat pocket. It was as if he didn't quite like to be touched, or didn't quite trust anything he couldn't directly control. The offer had been genuine enough, but too new to allow for any length of time.
"The Piper?" Michael smiled slightly, hoping the question might cover his jerk reaction. After the kindness of Belle, Michael (or at least, that child part of him) had grown to accept the fairytale characters of Storybrooke as safe; trustworthy. And again, that childish part of him was very almost delighted at their origins.
*Rolls through, riding a tumbleweed*
HELLO, YES, I AM HERE.
Darling bros
“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” ― JM barrie
ooc://
Wait, so. I just realised. If OUAT is set in a world where all the fairytales and stories we know are both written down things and real things, that means John and Michael were alive and around to witness all the various film and book adaptations of their lives being made and sold.
Younger, just returned from Neverland, Michael catching a glimpse of a poster for the new Disney cartoon adaptation of Peter Pan, and having nightmares for weeks on end. John being both utterly livid and horrified at how wrong they got the story, and how likeable people have made Pan.
//Closed starter for darlingchiiild
It had rained last night. Not the light, drizzling shower of a London Spring; the kind that made puddles, caused the lake in the park to swell, and panicked the ducks. Not the kind of rain Michael was used to. This wasn't fun rain.
It had been the kind of tropical storm Michael was still too young to have even heard about. Great fat droplets of water had pounded down at them relentlessly, downing branches and leaves, and destroying the smaller saplings completely. Out on the bay, the crashing waves had reached right up the cliffs on the other side of the island, and lightning had lit up the sky like midday. This wasn't the first storm the brothers had witnessed, and it wouldn't be the last. In Neverland, it seemed, even the weather was ruthless.
Michael Darling clung tight to his sodden teddy bear, shivering under the old oak tree in the cold morning light. He was trying to be brave, for John. But the little boy's lower lip quivered. His nose streamed, and his eyes shone with barely concealed tears. Back at home, Mother had always comforted him during the night of the storm. She had held Michael close, sang him songs, and made sure Nana was close by at all times. But now there was no Mother, and no Nana. Mother had stopped coming to comfort Michael a long time ago, and he couldn't understand why.
Had he been bad? Was she cross at him? Michael didn't want to be here. Neverland wasn't fun any more. He wanted to stop playing this game.
Send me a "Who?" and my Muse will forget yours.
Will your Muse try to make them remember? Were they trying to get this to happen?
There wasn’t a limit he could reach or a line he wouldn’t cross in order to make her happy.
Gail McHugh, Pulse (via militisxlux)
you’re my person, i need you alive you make me brave.
Michael forced himself to look away, his face as unchanged as he could allow it. Felix, to him, would always be connected in some way to Pan. And Pan, for so many years, had been both a source of power and orders. Felix meant danger, Felix meant Pan discovering what they had done. Felix meant, to that childish part of Michael’s perception, badness. Michael didn’t want to look at Felix, he didn’t want to even see him.
"Go.away." he managed.
"Where am I going to go, Michael?" Sweet, innocent Michael, and Felix couldn’t help the smirk on his face. He didn’t have Pan anymore, not now, but old habits die hard. "It’s not like there are many places to go in this town, now are there?”
With his face turned away, Michael Darling was rapidly losing his composure. He was too close, it was too soon, they had too much at stake to lose all over again. It felt, sitting here, in this town, that they might never be fully free of Peter Pan's influence. Not with the very epitome of a loyal lost boy no more than a foot away.
Michael had known Felix as a toddler, when Felix had seemed like an adult in his eyes; on the same level as Peter Pan himself. And although he had long since aged past the gangly teen, whilst Felix himself hadn't aged a day, never would Michael be able to quite shake the childhood fear.
Slowly, resentfully, Michael turned back to face Felix. His eyes shone tearfully, his face was pale. But in his tight, anxious way, Michael glared.
"We don't work for Pan any more." he said softly, unable to keep the gentle edge of relief, or disbelief, from his voice. "You don't frighten me!"
